We all watch the news and see reports on Facebook of the latest crimes that happen in our hometowns. But it can be hard to tell at a big picture level how dangerous our town actually is.

No one wants to feel unsafe, and statistically speaking, odds are that where you live is most likely relatively safe. In order to help the good people of Ohio — and anyone looking to move to Ohio — know just how close they are to danger, we took data from the annual FBI report and did some serious analysis.

The data shows that these ten cities are currently the most dangerous in the Buckeye State for 2019:

Tiny Whitehall, statistically, is the 10th most violent city per capita in the entire state of Ohio. Whitehall, for those outside of the Columbus area, is essentially a tiny Columbus suburb.

While crimes here skyrocketed in 2016, apparently, local jurisdictions have made progress, as crimes went down in 2017. However, for a town of just over 18,835 people, 125 violent crimes is eye opening. Statistically, 1 in 150 residents was the victim of a rape, attack or was killed just two years ago. And that’s even lower than it was the year before, when it was double that.

Springfield, right in the middle of Dayton and Columbus, has seen property crimes plummet about 30% recently, so law enforcement must be cracking down on vehicle thefts and home invasion robberies. Statistically, 1 in 159 people in Springfield were raped, attacked or murdered in 2017. Wow.

We noticed a trend in our top ten that is exemplified by Cleveland. Violent crime rates tend to be higher in bigger cities. This probably has to do with population density and a larger range of incomes. Smaller cities have a tendency to have higher property crime rates.

Cleveland ranks 19th for property crime and 1st for violent crime according to the most recent FBI data.

Folks who live in little Middletown have the 196 highest chance of being the victim of a rape or attack. The city, located in Southeastern Ohio, has seen a moderate population decline in recent years, perhaps due to the crime happening within its city limits.

In 2017, 1 out of 15.2 Middletown residents were the victim of a crime.

Middletown is also home of the famous Lambert?s Cafe (the ‘throwed rolls restaurant’).

I doubt the accuracy since Columbus, Lancaster, Steubenville and others not listed. Crime in the cities are closely related to poverty. Southern Ohio has a lack of jobs and a lot of poverty as do many inner cities. Most city crime is drug related and that’s everywhere.

Before you put your name to anything this critical you should be careful coming to any conclusions until you check reported crimes compared to actual crimes. Even though the FBI provide the tools needed to come up with these results they, and you have no way to tell how and why the reports were taken.

They were using the UCR which does not take into account dark figure crimes, as well as the UCR only takes the most violent or deviant crimes committed, so if there are multiple crimes committed at one time the worst crime will be the only one reported. Just keep that in mind!

Youngstown was the murder capital of the USA per captita 2001-2003.
In fact I passed a woman wearing a shirt today that had “Youngstown, Ohio murder capital of America, 2001-2003 come heavy or don’t come at all”. LOL Still true today no matter how many gentrified craft beer places they can prop up throughout the area.

“Springfield, a suburb of St. Louis,”. Unless you are writing about some other state, St. Louis is more than 500 miles away in Missouri. The last I checked there were two states inbetween Ohio and Missouri. Now Springfield, Ohio is small city halfway inbetween Dayton and Columbus and is not considered a suburb of either although it is considered to be in the Dayton CSA

This site, “roadsnacks,” dies not ascribe to any respected methods of research. Much of the information posted in this piece is indeed false. Not only did they put two of the cities on the list as two suburbs of St. Louis Missouri, but their population statistics and crime rates are not even close.

I really dislike places that do this. But people are gullible and believe whatever they are fed.

Chris Kolmar, You and your site have zero credibility. You stated that Springfield and Whitehall were suburbs of St. Louis. The last time I looked at a map there were TWO STATES between Ohio and Missouri.They are Indiana and Illinois. Not even Springfield, Missouri is a suburb of St. Louis, They are 250 miles apart. How do you make such mistakes? Your facts are wrong in more ways than one. You contradict yourself. You claim both Dayton and Whitehall are the most dangerous.

Highly disagree with your data and facts on ranking Springfield No. 2 as dangerous to live in Ohio.

We (Springfield, Ohio) is by far the best city in Ohio to live in.
Springfield have gone from strictly depending on manufacturing for employment to a mixture of employers. Springfield has several industrial parks and Springfield Beckley Municipal Airport.

We are home To Wittenberg University and Clark State Community College with wonderful Public and Private Schools.
Great amenities like a brewery with farmers market during winter months, ice arena, baseball, parks and recreation, fantastic Summer Arts Programs in Veterans Park.

Springfield, Ohio has an abundance of group and organizations with events and programs. We are home to the John Legend Theater with year-round plays and programs.

We Springfield, Ohio are an inviting city, look forward to you considering using personal visits and speaking with Greater Springfield Chamber Of Commerce, Elected Officials and people in our great city instead of hiding behind data.

This is Valerie Lough, Community Information Coordinator for the City of Springfield. It is worth noting that, while you are sourcing FBI uniform crime reporting, you are assigning a per capita number that includes property crime as well as violent crime. The FBI has routinely cautioned against using crime rankings as they can lead to simplistic analysis, that can create misleading perceptions. Property crimes include theft, motor vehicle theft, and burglary. This is misleading, as many people tend to associate “danger” with violent crime, not property crime. Thank you for your time.